I swear it's the middle of the night and it's just like college as I sit here at my new superfast! computer and do absolutely every kind of pop culture web surfing possible to put off getting a decent draft together of this story that I promised my friends/editors tomorrow, which is already an extension of my previous deadline, excused away by the last sputtering gasp of the previous SUPERSLOOOOOOW computer, like, you could write it on paper, lazy excuse girl, and the buzzer is ringing - time is up.
Here's the thing: I really want this story to be good, because I really want to win $3000 from Writer's Digest, and if I could be the teeniest tiniest bit realistic that you just don't usually win the contest or the boy, frankly, then I wouldn't have put this pressure on myself to get it together like Flannery and pour out some lovely Southern prose. I've been reading, sure, Flannery and Eudora Welty and Faulkner because I want to say "June Star said her hair was naturally curly." Writing about writing is often this painful mix of pretension and self-deprecation, made worse if you've never even written anything of estimable value, especially here - the new pinnacle of mediocrity and bore. But among excuses, it certainly looks the best. Except now it's 12:58 am and I really am going to keep this deadline.
